Customer Reviews

Cry Salty Tears

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Boy George was my first gay hero. It was a delight to learn about his mother and hear what she had to say about the singer. However, you don't have to be a Culture Club fan to appreciate this. In fact, I wonder if women who have never even heard of Boy George would like this more.

This book was about domestic violence. It touches on soooo many common themes. The husband was extremely jealous and expected adultery when there was nothing there. The wife was so mentally traumatized that she began to blame herself. The husband would always cry for forgiveness after doing intense physical damage. (George said John would beg for forgiveness after cheating on him in a hetero manner.) Not just the husband's relatives, but the wife's own father said she had to put up with it as a dutiful spouse. The wife would purposely dress in a frumpy manner to keep her husband from accusing her of seducing other men. Actually, if you like hearing about celebrities' abusive families, you may want to read this alongside the autobiography of Etterlene DeBarge, the mother of the group DeBarge.

I watched an Irish program on Dinah O'Down on eeoo2be. I also read the book in counterchronological order. This helped me to deal with all the injustice and physical violence being detailed. Boy George's rise to fame does not occur until the middle of the book and one chapter later Dinah gives details that were happening while Culture Club recorded its last studio album of the 1980s, so again, this is not the inside scoop on the singer. The focus is domestic abuse in a 20th-century United Kingdom context.

This was a much quicker read than Boy George's "Take It Like a Man." Even though Boy George is the one who travelled the world, his book is filled with British slang that was just gibberish for me to read as an American. Mrs. O'Dowd's book is not as full of vernacular. She writes things like "fell pregnant" and occasionally uses terms we don't hear in the US. However, this book is very foreigner-friendly.

Near the start of the book, Boy George implies that he did not come up with the idea of the book. It was purely the idea of Mrs. O'Dowd. I kinda want to give it to the women in my life who have faced domestic violence, but some people in that group want to avoid the topic, rather than think about how common the tragedy is.

Mrs. O'Dowd suggests that she never met a Rainbow-Flag man until near her wedding day. Perhaps members of the organization P-FLAG would like and promote this book. Maybe it should be read alongside the book from Ellen DeGeneres' mother. This may also be a great text for women's studies or psychology majors.